Liz Theoharis

Books

You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons From the Movement to End Poverty

by The Rev. Dr Liz Theoharis & Noam Sandweiss-Back

Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, one of the nation’s leading anti-poverty organizers and moral voices, and her co-author, Noam Sandweiss-Back, argue it is possible to abolish poverty. But this won’t happen through the goodwill of the powerful or the charitable actions of well-meaning people alone. It will happen through a mass movement, open to all, and led by the poor themselves.

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We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor

Edited by Liz Theoharis and Charon Hribar

Broadleaf Press, September 9, 2025 (available for pre-order now)

A book of prayers, rituals, and liturgies that grows out of communities committed to abolishing poverty.

Prayer has long sustained movements for social change. Ritual gives shape to our desire for justice, and liturgy lends power to our work. In We Pray Freedom, we learn from activists and movement builders the songs, stories, and ritual practices that keep them going for the long haul.

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Articles & Interviews

The War on Trans People

And What It Means in the Age of Trump

Tom Dispatch
By Aaron Scott, Liz Theoharis and Moses Hernandez McGavin
June 3, 2025

This year, Pride Month arrives at an especially dire moment for the LGBTQ+ community. Under the second Trump administration, homophobic vitriol and violence are on the rise. On Elon Musk’s X platform, a “deepfake” video of Donald Trump canceling Pride Month has gone viral.

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How to fight back against Trump? Look to poor people’s movements

Anti-poverty activism has provided a model for transformational power, based on four strategic principles

The Guardian
by Rev Dr Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back
June 1, 2025

For tens of millions of people, Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is a grotesque nightmare. The proposed legislative cuts, including historic attacks on Medicaid and Snap, come at a time when 60% of Americans already cannot make ends meet.

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Interview: A Better World radio show with McNair Ezzard

A Better World radio show on WPVM FM
With McNair Ezzard
May 25, 2025
Asheville, North Carolina

Millions of people know that a world of injustice, poverty and oppression are no longer sustainable. Groups across America are working to change this type of world. One such powerful group is the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice in New York. For the last twenty years, Kairos has grown into a national network of grassroots, community and religious leaders and organizations on the front lines of struggles against systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and militarism.

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Interview: Getting organised to fight poverty

Poverty Unpacked podcast
April 26, 2025

Ending poverty requires mass movements. Charitable actions by individuals can make an important difference but are ultimately a drop in the bucket. Real change only happens when people come together and stand up against the injustice of poverty. Indeed, there is a long history of organising with notable successes for current day activists to learn from and feel encouraged by.

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Interview on the KGNU radio show Connections with Joel Edelstein

KGNU Connections
Joel Edelstein
April 18, 2025

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You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take

The Power of the Poor in Trump’s America

Tom Dispatch
by Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back
April 15, 2025

The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the 10 richest people in the world — including nine Americans — expanded their wealth by nearly $64 billion, the greatest single-day increase in recorded history. Since then, an unholy marriage of billionaire investors, tech bros, Christian nationalists, and, of course, Donald Trump has staged an oligarchic assault on our democracy.

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About the Author

The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis is a theologian, pastor, author, and anti-poverty activist. She is the Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Rev. Dr. Theoharis has been organizing in poor and low-income communities for the past 30 years. Her books include: You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty (Beacon, 2025), We Pray Freedom: Liturgies and Rituals from the Freedom Church of the Poor (Broadleaf Press, 2025) and Always with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor (Eerdmans, 2017) and she has been published in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Politico, Sojourners and elsewhere. Rev. Dr. Theoharis is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and teaches at Union Theological Seminary. She has been awarded the Freedom Award from the National Civil Rights Museum, the Selma Bridge Award, the Women of Spirit Award from the Presbyterian Church (USA) and many others.